Oops…Parenting Surprises & Lessons Learned

Parenting is full of surprises.
Sometimes the biggest surprises involve catching myself doing the absurd. For
instance, my daughters were having an argument upstairs. They kept getting
louder and louder. Their comments became harsher and harsher. I could just
imagine balled fists and reddened faces. So, I walked to the bottom of the
stairs and yelled, “We don’t yell in this house.” Did I just do what
I think I did? Yes, I did. I yelled at them to stop yelling…and I did it with a
rather harsh tone. Surprise! I surprised myself and learned a lesson that day:
to discipline effectively, don’t yell across the room (or into another room).
Walk over to your children. Let them see your presence next to them. Get down
on their level and talk to them rather than yell across the room. You might
even touch them gently on the shoulder as you remind them of the expectations.
Your presence next to them speaks volumes more than your voice from across the
room. That wasn’t the last time I surprised myself though. There was the Battle
of the Red Jello, too.

We were enjoying a family dinner at a small restaurant. My daughter had eaten her chicken and her broccoli. She had even eaten two helpings of broccoli. We now prepared to order dessert. But my daughter still had a small square of jello on her plate. “Eat your jello.” “I don’t like red jello.” With that short exchange, the stand-off began. I cajoled, demanded, and even offered minor threats. Still, my daughter stood her ground. “I don’t like red jello.” After a short, but epic battle in which I sustained great damage to ego, a realization dawned. I’m arguing with a 7-year-old to eat her jello even though she has already eaten her chicken and two helpings of broccoli. Hmmm…surprise! Lesson learned: make sure the battle really is worth the fight. Make sure it really matches the priority your trying to teach. The Battle of the Red Jello just wasn’t worth the time and energy. Let it go.

One more surprise…I can only embarrass myself three times, so I’ll have to quit after this one. It all happened when I couldn’t find a piece of sheet music. I wanted to play it on the guitar and I knew I had the music somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. I remembered hearing my daughter playing it earlier, so I asked her where it was. “I don’t know.” Convenient, I thought as I began to scold her for being careless and losing things that don’t belong to her. “Why do you always take things? I wish you’d learn to put things back where you got them from!” “Hey Dad,” she politely interrupted. “Didn’t you have it in the kitchen at lunch?” Oh yeah…now I remember. I had put it on the table after showing it to my daughters. Oops. Surprised…and embarrassed. Another lesson learned: Don’t jump to conclusions. Don’t cast blame when you don’t know where blame lies. And, “never” use words like “always” or “never.” You might have to eat them sooner than you think. This incident taught me another lesson, too, and this one was hard to swallow. Sometimes I have to apologize, even to my children. “I’m sorry I accused you and yelled at you.” “It’s OK.” “Thank you for being understanding.” “Why wouldn’t I? You taught us that way.” What? Another surprise?! We taught our daughters to show grace and forgiveness. Forgot about that. Cool. I guess the surprises aren’t all bad after all.